Lost in translation following Judge Gary Donahoe’s order that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s disciple, Adam Stoddard, spend some paid time at the Mesa Hilton, was that the other fine court officers in Maricopa County came down with a mystery disease that prevented them from transporting prisoners to court. Sickness can be so unpredictable.
The judges of Maricopa County, apparently, decided that they would no longer let the sheriff control their dockets. From the Arizona Republic:
And a sheriff’s deputy chief, who last fall was held in contempt of court for the office’s failure to follow the law, will appear before a judge on Friday to answer nearly 200 new counts.This apparently goes far beyond the Stoddard sick out, and has been a perpetual problem in Maricopa County.More than half the contempt citations stem from Dec. 2, 2009, when 19 court transportation and security officers called in sick. One day earlier, a colleague of theirs in the Sheriff’s Office was found in contempt and ordered to jail for refusing to apologize to a judge for going through an attorney’s case files. Sheriff’s officials have insisted the high volume of sick deputies was a coincidence.
The Sheriff’s Office has struggled to get inmates in court on time since last summer, and a series of steps that court and sheriff’s administrators took to alleviate the strain has done little to help.
From Sept. 24, 2009, to Jan. 20, there were at least 198 incidents in which inmates were not brought to court on time or at all, and 19 Maricopa County Superior Court judicial officers filed paperwork to have sheriff’s Deputy Chief Dave Trombi, the person in charge of transporting inmates, held in contempt.
This has given rise to a hearing to be conducted in Yavapai County before Superior Court Judge Robert Brutinel. Apparently, it was decided (by whom is unclear) that the judges of Maricopa County might be somewhat biased, and consequently the matter was sent out to be decided by an “impartial” judge.
Ordinarily, judges handle their own contempt cases. And contrary to most court hearings, the terminology “ordered to show cause why you should not be held in contempt” implies that the defendant must prove he is not guilty, instead of a prosecutor proving he is guilty.While it’s heartening to see that there’s anyone left in Maricopa County willing to take on Crazy Joe Arpaio on any subject, it’s frankly incredible that the sheriff’s failure to produce defendants for court requires that a hearing be staged outside Maricopa County to remove any allegations of taint or prejudice.
Because these cases have been sent to a judge unfamiliar with the facts of the specific cases, Mundell has appointed Phoenix attorney Jeffrey Messing as a special prosecutor in the matter. Messing is a commercial litigator from the law firm Poli & Ball.
Of course it’s prejudiced, since its derives from the contempt power which means that he starts from the position of being in violation of a court order. For the Maricopa judges to give up their inherent authority to control their own courtrooms, even to the extent of having an outside judge pass on their contempt order, is almost laughable. They can’t even handle their own contempts, for crying out loud.
Of course, given that the rest of the county personnel lives in fear of having Sheriff Joe’s starship troopers knock on their doors in the middle of the night, it appears that a crumb from a loaf is better than nothing.
H/T Powell Gammill
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